Abhinav sat in the small, windowless interrogation room, the metal chair cold beneath him. Across the table, his father, Devraj Roy, looked utterly ruined. The Commissioner sat between them, holding the dusty file on Paritosh Sharma. Abhinav was here not as a witness, but as a traumatized spectator to his family's demolition.

"Mr. Roy, we know Mareena Sharma's father, Paritosh Sharma, was killed twenty years ago in a Roy Enterprises warehouse. We know the case was closed suspiciously fast. Start talking," the Commissioner commanded, his voice sharp and unyielding.

Devraj Roy, broken and shivering, glanced pleadingly at Abhinav, then averted his eyes, unable to face the man whose life he had destroyed. The confession tumbled out, a torrent of shame and buried guilt.

"Paritosh Sharma... he was a simple, honest man. He ran a small component manufacturing unit that supplied us," Devraj began. "But his wife, Geeta Sharma..."

Abhinav leaned forward, his hands flat on the cold metal table. "Mareena's mother. Tell us about her."

"Geeta and I had a liaison. An affair," Devraj admitted, the words barely audible. "We never intended to marry, but we were desperately in love. When Mareena was five, Geeta left Paritosh. She came to me, seeking a commitment I couldn't give her—not publicly, not with my father running the company."

"Where did you keep her?" the Commissioner pressed, his pen hovering over his notepad.

"In a secret flat I owned in the city. A hideaway. But Paritosh found out. He tracked us. He was destroyed by the betrayal. He came to the warehouse late one night, demanding to see me. He was shouting, threatening to expose the affair, the financial irregularities he’d found..."

Devraj's voice cracked. "We fought. We were by the scaffolding. He lunged at me... I pushed him back. I swear, it was just a push! But he lost his balance, his head hit the steel railing... and he died. It was a heat of the moment death, an accident, but I had killed him."

Abhinav felt a wave of cold horror wash over him. He was sitting next to a murderer. Mareena was the daughter of his father's victim.

"And Geeta Sharma?" the Commissioner continued, unmoved by the emotional display. "Did she know you killed him?"

Devraj nodded miserably. "Yes. She saw it all, but she fled, swearing she would expose me. That's when your grandfather—Abhinav’s grandfather—stepped in. He used his influence to close the case immediately. And to ensure Geeta's silence, he had her abducted."

The Commissioner looked sharply at Abhinav, gauging his reaction to the revelation of his family's utter corruption.

"He told her that if she ever came forward, I would face the death penalty, and Mareena would be taken away from her. He put her somewhere safe but unreachable," Devraj concluded, burying his head in his hands.

Abhinav's face was pale, his eyes locked on his father. "So Mareena didn't just lose a father... she lost her mother to our family's crimes." The truth was a living cancer, destroying every good memory he had.

Later that day, Abhinav forced a meeting with his mother, Mrs. Roy, who remained in police custody but was permitted limited contact. Her usual venom was still present, but now mixed with a bitter resignation.

"You knew all this, Mother," Abhinav accused, facing the truth about his home. "You knew Mareena was the daughter of the woman Father loved, the woman Grandfather made disappear."

Mrs. Roy did not deny it. Her eyes were sharp and hard. "Do you think I hate Mareena because she was low-born? No. I hated Mareena because she had Geeta's blood. Every time I looked at her, I saw the face of the woman who shared my bed, who stole my husband's heart! I knew she carried that toxic, destructive desire."

"I tried to protect you, Abhinav! I saw the intensity of her passion, the way she mirrored her mother's allure. I couldn't let you fall into the same trap as your father. I needed to keep you safe from that blood, that legacy of deceit!"

"And what about the conspiracy? The wedding?"

"She came back to us, Abhinav! After her father’s death and her mother’s disappearance, Mareena was put to an orphanage and 15 years ago she came back to this house for shelter, blackmailing your father with the old evidence Paritosh had gathered. She didn't come for love; she came here to take revenge by destroying us from the inside!" Mrs. Roy hissed, her voice full of absolute conviction.

Abhinav felt a terrible weight in his chest. His love, Mareena, had been the perfect weapon against him. But a deep, protective intuition fought against his mother's claims.

"I refuse to believe that, Mother," Abhinav whispered. "Even if she came here for revenge, she was an innocent girl of 18. The Mareena I knew... she was innocent. She fell for me in real earnest. I saw it in her eyes. I felt it in her soul."

Mrs. Roy laughed—a dry, bitter, humourless sound. "Love is just the bait for power, Abhinav. It always has been. Look at me. Look at your father. Look at your bride, Priya. Love is only a weakness."

Abhinav knew his mother was facing severe consequences for her role in the obstruction of justice, and his father faced the full weight of a murder charge, but Mrs. Roy was far from proved innocent of the subsequent cover-up and Mareena's disappearance. He left the station, his family's prestige finally and irrevocably destroyed, replaced by a legacy of crime and adultery.

One month bled into the next. Abhinav was a shell of a man, juggling the CEO duties, managing the fallout of his parents' arrests, and constantly watching the door, terrified of the conspirator’s next move.

He began to treat Priya with a strained gentleness. The announcement of her pregnancy—his child—triggered a biological, protective response, overriding the suspicions of the night they "conceived." He was terrified of creating a trauma for this unborn child like the one that had ruined his own life. He bought her prenatal supplements, started paying attention to her health, and began to care for the safety of the woman carrying his potential heir.

It was Priya's birthday. Priya was at home after cutting the cake which Abhinav had brought for her. Priya shifted on the couch, a soft sigh escaping her as she tried to get comfortable. Her hand rested instinctively on her growing stomach. Abhinav noticed immediately.

“Don’t move,” he said gently, placing a cushion behind her back with the kind of focus reserved for delicate things. “Is this better?”

“A little,” she admitted, smiling at how seriously he took every tiny adjustment.

He crouched beside her, checking her expression as if searching for the smallest sign of discomfort. His fingertips brushed her wrist—a familiar gesture, one he had once offered someone else without thinking. A faint shadow crossed his face, gone almost as quickly as it came.

“You’re overthinking again,” Priya said softly.

“Maybe,” he replied, smoothing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I just… want to make sure you’re okay.”

She placed her hand lightly over his. “I am. Because you’re here.”

Abhinav’s chest tightened—not with romantic love, but with a strange mix of responsibility and tenderness. The kind that had grown quietly, unexpectedly. The kind he knew Mareena would have wanted him to feel.

He helped her shift closer and tucked a warm blanket around her legs. “You should be resting,” he murmured.

“And you should stop hovering,” she teased.

“I’m not hovering,” he protested, though the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth made it a losing argument. “I’m… supervising.”

Priya laughed, the sound light and warm. The baby kicked just then, a gentle flutter, and she caught his hand, guiding it to her stomach.

“Feel that?”

Abhinav’s eyes softened. “Yeah… I do.”

For a moment, the world stilled.

And even though a part of him still whispered Mareena’s name like an echo, another part—quieter but growing—found peace in this small, shared moment with Priya.

One evening, while clearing papers from his desk to organize his father's legal files, he found a stray document slipped between a bank statement and a shareholder report. It was a receipt and consent form from the IVF clinic Priya had visited a month ago.

Abhinav snatched it up. He saw the official seals, the dates, and the purpose: Cryopreservation and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) Consent.

His blood ran cold. He flipped to the donor section. The document detailed the collection and storage of a sperm sample provided by Mr. Abhinav Roy. Below the signature line for the donor, the name Abhinav Roy was signed.

He looked closer. The loops, the slant, the capital 'A'—it was a passable attempt, but it wasn't his signature. Priya had forged his signature on the sperm consent list.

The truth hit him with shocking clarity, incinerating all traces of his protective care for her. The night she had drugged him, the convenient memory loss, the instant "pregnancy"—it was all a cold, calculated transaction. He had been cloned without consent.

Abhinav stormed into the master suite, the IVF consent form clutched like a weapon. Priya was reclining elegantly on a chaise, reading a magazine.

"Priya," his voice was dangerously low, "explain this." He threw the paper onto her lap.

Priya looked at the document, then back at him, her beautiful features hardening into a mask of pure ambition. The mask of the grieving, loving wife was gone forever.

"It explains itself, Abhinav," she said coolly, not even bothering to lie.

"You drugged me. You stole my sperm. You forged my signature! You pretended we conceived that night!" Abhinav was shaking with fury and disgust. "You will terminate this immediately!"

Priya laughed—a sharp, mirthless sound that echoed the chilling laugh of his mother earlier that day. "No, Abhinav. I will not. This child is going to be the most expensive mistake you ever made."

She swung her legs off the chaise, standing tall and defiant. "The Roy family is sinking. Your father is a murderer, your mother is an accomplice, and you are about to lose everything to the Khandelwals and Mareena's revenge plot."

"This child," Priya stated, placing a hand protectively over her flat abdomen, "is my insurance. I will give birth to this child. I will name it Roy. And when I file for divorce, Abhinav, which I will, I will receive the largest alimony and child support settlement in this country's history. I will take everything the Roy name is worth and walk away clean."

She leaned in, her eyes sharp with hate and ambition. "You are obsessed with a ghost and a revenge plot that will destroy you. I am securing my future. You may hate me, but thanks to you, I will never be poor again."

Abhinav felt utterly defeated. He was trapped not just by the past, but by the legal, biological trap his own wife had meticulously set. The heir, the symbol of the dynasty’s continuity, was nothing more than a weapon designed to bleed him dry.

Abhinav had felt good about Priya after he knew that he was responsible for this baby. He also felt that he was cruel to her all these years by not loving her. He started to trust her and also cared for her. But this felt like deception. He still managed to accept that she got pregnant by him naturally that night but by artificial methods and stealing his sample, he felt betrayed. Abhinav is thinking that all of them have betrayed him. His father, mother, wife and Mareena? Did she? Did she play with him 15 years ago to seek revenge? Or her feelings were real?

SPOILER:

"I know she is in Kashmir ... hiding".

"Hey lady, what do you want?"-said Abhinav

"Hi Abhi, Do you remember me?"

He was shocked by looking at her face... is she real?